Teen Problems
by Pixie Child
Summary: Dissatisfied with her body, Dawn's life snowballs from there.


AUTHOR: Dark Will (screwin_evil@hotmail.com)  
  
RATING: R for language and suicide.  
  
SYNOPSIS: Dissatisfied with her body, her life snowballs from there.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything in the BVTS. If I did, I wouldn't be living in this damp cardboard box, eating dirt a-la worms  
  
MAIN CHARTER: Dawn  
  
PAIRING: None  
  
FEEDBACK: Yes please! Constructive criticism and complements are always welcome. Even flames are excepted, but I can't guarantee you won't get a fairly rude reply.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story contains death of a charter by her own hand.  
  
Read with caution!  
  
Dawn stood in front of the full-length mirror in the school washroom, just before her first period class. It was February tenth and *still* nobody had asked her to the Valentines Day dance. Reaching to touch her nose, she sighed. For Christmas she had asked her Joyce for a nose job, and much to the girl's surprise, her mother had agreed, paying for it, no problems, trying to be a 'hip' parent. Then, with the money she received from her father, she purchased a tummy-tuck. At first, she was pleased with the results, but now... The last bell went, and Dawn grabbed her purse. She couldn't be late again, or her father would blow a gasket. Bolting for class, Dawn began to worry about what her teacher would say, her previous thoughts forgotten.  
  
"Dawn, over here!" the blonde looked over at her table, where her friends already sat. Lowering her self into her chair, she sight took in her tray, and she felt a pang of guilt. A huge slice of apple pie and a can of cola were all she had ordered for lunch. Dawn glanced around the table and wasn't surprised when she learned all her friends had were salads and bottles of water for their meal. *They all have dates for the dance.* Dawn reminded herself. *They have to stay thin until the fourteenth so they can fit into their dresses.* Pushing the feeling aside, she dug into her pie with gusto, lifting a fairly large forkful to her mouth.  
  
Quietly, she listened to her friends' gossip about this and that, who Billy was asking to the dance, how far Joan was willing to go on a date, according to the latest rumors, and other things like such. Suddenly, they all stopped and stared at something behind Dawn. Turning, she saw Riley, one of the most popular guys in school and star football players, hovering above her.  
  
"Hey, Dawn." He greeted her.  
  
"Umm." She managed to respond.  
  
"Uh, probably every guy has asked you this, but will you go to the dance with me?" Riley mumbled, the tips of his ears turning red. Dawn practically choked on her pie. As if he had to ask! Struggling to compose herself, she took in a deep breath.  
  
"Yes! I-I mean, sure, I'll go with you!" Riley smiled, making Dawn sure she was going to melt under the warmth of his gaze onto the floor.  
  
"Great! I'll pick you up at seven? If that is okay with you?" Dawn just nodded. "Perfect! So I'll see you later." When he left, her friend squealed.  
  
"Ohmigod, ohmigod, OHMIGOD!!!"  
  
"You are *SO* lucky!"  
  
"I wish I was you!"  
  
"I am so jealous!" Janet shrieked.  
  
Dawn could feel her face beginning to flush, and her eyes fell on her pie, now nearly finished.  
  
"Umm, ya, I guess. Excuse me. Dawn stood up and bolted out of the cafeteria, running toward the girls' washroom.  
*I cannot believe I ate that whole piece of pie!* Going into a stall, after checking to make sure if anyone else was in the washroom, Dawn sat down on the floor. *I am such a pig!* Dawn raised her hand, and flexed her index finger. *I promised I wouldn't do this again, but I've got to look good for the dance. Riley is SOO hot!" Hesitating, she shook her head. *Dance. Riley. Look. GOOD.* Flexing her finger once again, Dawn poked it down her throat. Bile rose and she could feel the acidic liquid traveling up the inside of her neck. Dawn slowly pressed it down further, and could taste her vomit, mixed with, the also acidic, taste of apple. *Again!* Dawn gagged again, and lost a portion of her lunch to the toilet. She could see partly digested chunks of apple and piecrust floating in the bowl. *Again, AGAIN!* Once again, she forced her body to toss up her lunch. Repeatedly, Dawn vomited up, until she was sure that there wasn't anything in her body that could be converted into fat, preventing her from looking stunningly sexy and less than perfect for Riley on V-day. Dawn's legs were shaky, but she forced them to hold her upright.  
  
She turned on the tap on, just watching the clear, crystal water run from the tap, into the sink and swirl around before sinking into the drain. Slowly, Dawn cupped her hands and filled them with the cool liquid. Bringing her hands to her mouth, she drank heartily, allowing the refreshing water to pour down her raw throat.  
  
When she was finished, Dawn headed back to the cafeteria to be with her friends. On her way down the halls, Dawn made a resolution. She was not going to let anything pass her lips until after the dance. She had to look perfect, and she would, even if it killed her.  
~*~*~ Two Years Later. ~*~*~  
  
'Life is great! It couldn't get any better if I won a gazillion dollars and mover to Paris! In fact, it would be worse, because I would have to move away from Riley. Can you believe it, diary? He asked ME to the dance! Everybody keeps saying I am so luck, and I have to agree!' Snorting, Dawn flipped past about four months worth of entries, and resumed reading. 'Guess what, diary? Riley asked me to go to the prom! I still don't know why her asked me, of all people, out four months and eight days ago. Me, with my scrawny arms and my FAT. Janet says she would kill for my figure, because she is flat, but breasts are a pain. I tell her I am FAT, but she says I'm crazy. She must be blind not to see it. I look like I weigh 200 pounds!!! But back to Riley. I had a crush on him for a year, but I didn't think he noticed me. I'm just a regular cheerleader, and he is a major football player on the school team. If this is a dream, I never want to wake up!'  
  
Disgusted, Dawn pitched her old diary into the wood stove, where, already, her yearbook, photos and notes that she had passed back and forth in class with her friends, had caught fire. Six months after she had written that entry, Dawn had made head cheerleader, thanks to the popularity she had gained by dating Riley. They were the golden couple and Dawn had been the envy of every girl in school. And then to be captain of the squad. it was every high school girl's dream. But Andraya would have none of it. She had been only forty-seven ballots behind Dawn in the race, and was not taking it very well. She had surprised everyone by excepting Dawn's invite to her victory party, which her mom threw for her. After dinner, Dawn had excused herself from the table, and went to regurgitate her meal. When she was finished, she turned around, to see Andraya watching her, a crew smirk on her, otherwise flawless, face. Before she could stop her, Andraya had told Buffy what she had seen, and before she knew what was what, Dawn was in a clinic for people with eating disorders.  
  
A year after she was released, she was back in school, and welcomed back into the popular crowd, no questions. Riley knew they were soulmates and had waited for her, not even looking at another girl. Everything was as it was. Nothing had changed. It was as if time had stood still for her, waiting for her to get her life together.  
  
As If.  
  
Riley had started going out with Janet, one of the loosest girls in the school, and nobody had bothered to inform her that he had broken up with her, while she was in the hospital. Everybody was acting weird around her, and Andraya had made head cheerleader by default, a she was runner up. But the biggest blow was that Janet, her best friend in the whole wold, had dropped out school, after being knocked-up by the QB. Dawn hadn't even known they had been going out. Lately, life sucked beyond measure for her. All her old friends seemed so shallow, and before she had been hospitalized, she had alienated all the geeks, losers and freaks in the school, by calling them just that. Dawn gave a dry, humorless laugh, knowing very well that, even though they didn't say it to her face, that is what she was to her 'friends'. They all pretended to be okay with her hanging with them, but Dawn wasn't stupid, and knew it was bull.  
  
When school ended, she dragged herself home, flopped onto her bed, and fell asleep, desperate for escape.  
  
~*~ A Week Later ~*~  
  
Dawn felt like crap. No. She didn't. That would imply that she felt anything at all. She was dead inside. Nothing was what she felt. If all of a sudden the cops came to the door and told her that her mother and sister had fallen victim to a crew, sadistic, insane, serial-killer, and they still hadn't found all the pieces of their bodies. That the only way to identify that it was indeed them was from DNA tests, her only response would be a nod. Because nothing mattered. She wasn't sure why.  
  
That day, her 'friends' had told her to take a hike. Their exact words were, "Hey, Bitch, nobody likes you. The only reason we put up with you is because we felt sorry for you. You are a pathetic, worthless, needy, whore whom is just taking up space. A huge waste. So just throw yourself off a bridge, or something. Rid the world of the freak-ness that was called Dawn Summers before it became a-" Kate had paused for a moment. "Never mind. If I said what I was going to, I would be worse then you."  
  
But it wasn't as if she hadn't known it was coming, though. Dawn had been fully aware of what her old friends thought of her recently. The looks they had been giving her. The conversations that had been abruptly cut off when she reached them. The giggles that went off, when she passed girls she didn't even know, in the halls. The jokes that would send everyone into hysterical fits of laughter and when she asked what was so funny, they would all get guilty looks on their faces. The kind of looks, Dawn could guess, she would get, when she realized she had eaten something other then celery.  
  
Sneaking into her sister's room, and went through Buffy's desk drawer, after making sure she closed the door ever-so-softly behind her. It wouldn't do for sister to catch her, and stop her from completing her task. Finding what she was looking for, Dawn felt the weight and coolness of the metal in her hand. She had known her sister had kept it in this drawer, but she hadn't expected it to be that simple to find. Not that she was complaining.  
  
Removing all the bullets from her father's revolver, she replaced only one of them, and she spun the chamber. Placing the barrel to the side of her head, she made a resolution. No, make that a mind-numbing decision, or it would have been mind numbing, if she wasn't already numb, make that dead, on the inside. She would fire the gun four times, if she survived, Dawn would try to live out her life, as if she never attempted this. Live in a dark room, away from everybody else, if she had to. Fate would decide. *With my luck,* she thought, *The bullet will probably be in the fifth section.* Dawn took in a deep breath, and pulled the trigger.  
  
Dawn Summers, age sixteen, died without realizing she had been right. The bullet she put into the gun had been in the fifth section of the chamber. What else she hadn't known was that she had missed one of the little, mettle pellets when she thought she had removed all of the deadly, silver bits from the gun. That was the one that had killed her, on the first shot.  
  
** End ** 


End file.
